The Dick Van Dyke show in Blu-ray

[Barry]

The Dick Van Dyke show in Blu-ray

I Love Lucy was the sitcom of the 1950s. The Dick Van Dyke show turns out to be the ultimate sitcom of the 1960s. At that time, sitcom revolved around children. At this point in time, the Van Dyke show revolved around adults.

It began when TV writer Carl Reiner was concerned about not making money when the Sid Caesar shows were canceled. He wrote a pilot for a new sitcom called Head of the House, which he starred in.  And it was terrible. He went onto other projects.

Sheldon Leonard, the TV producer, saw it and saw grey potential. He called in Reiner and said that they were going to produce a show of it. Reiner asked what changes were they going to make?

Sheldon Leonard said “we’re going to get a better you.“. And they did.

It’s hard to believe that this show was the Seinfeld of its day. It was made for adults and it was just damn funny. A major reason for a success was its wonderful cast. No one knew then that I’m Mary Tyler Moore could be funny. They discovered that as the show went on. But they also had Maury Amsterdam and Rose Marie as castmates.

It’s hard to believe, but the things that they did on the show or not only unconventional, they had to fight the censors to do it.

• Rose Marie portrayed, a single, working woman equal to the men in her office. That was not shown on TV back then..
• Mary Tyler Moore or Capri pants and not dresses and skirts. This was not acceptable at that time.
• The show showed equal time to Rob at work as well at home. At that time you did not show someone at work.
• Their son Ritchie was not the center of the show, and he was not smarter than the adults which was common at that time.  

The show often showed the talent of the entire cast and had them singing and dancing and doing pantomime. Ron would express that those were his favorite shows because he had less to write.

The show was just darn funny. Dick Van Dyke can deliver a funny line, but his physical humor, his pantomime, his falling over anything, was just darn funny.

It is a bit dated now, Rob and Laura never shared a bed, although they are often showed them sharing a bedroom. But they did show great affection for each other, which was rarely  shown on TV at that time.

I mentioned how well Desilu Studios filmed their projects. On blue Ray this really shows with this black-and-white production. It looks beautiful and it looks better than it did when it was first broadcast. It was filmed in black-and-white because color would have caused them $7000 more an episode. That’s probably like $70,000 today. And although it wasn’t unique, it was rare to use a three cam or technique at that time but Desilu Studios always did the best . The audio was fine but again it is from the 1960 so there’s nothing special there but it is very satisfying. 

There are a ton of bonus features. Interviews with the cast, the cast on various talk shows of it era. Commercials that they filmed for the TV show, reunions and so much more.


Chuck Lorre, creator of The Big Bang Theory gives a quote that best concludes this review.

Lord, if it be thy will, give unto us a story that has lots of comic potential while simultaneously exploring and defining our characters and their relationships (preferably something that hasn't been done on Dick Van Dyke or Friends).